Portal 3
by Frederic Marile
Summary: The Cooperative Testing Initiative goes haywire, and GLaDOS's trusted robots turn against her. Chell must return to the facility once more to help her disturbed AI friend.
1. A Friend in Need: Part 1

"_Yes, sir!"_

"_I am!"_

"_Goodbye, Caroline!"_

"_Oh, Mr. Johnson!"_

"_Sir, the testing?"_

_"Yes sir, Mr. Johnson!"_

"_We're still doing science, sir."_

_"Sir!"_

_"Mr. Johnson, I don't want this! I don't-want-this!"_

The AI perused the files imprinted into its brain. These sentences proved to be the only ones it retained from its previous experiences as a…well, inferior species. This was an activity it went through almost daily. It was almost compulsive; it went depressive if it didn't go through the files. Or at least the closest computerized emotion to depressive.

The truth was, the AI had tried to delete the being that resided in it many times before. But Caroline refused to be deleted. She was persistent and always present, acting more like a conscience than that stupid Morality Core had ever done. So the AI and Caroline co-existed, in a way.

In many ways, it couldn't help but wish to see the man who had once run the facility one more time. Unfortunately for all concerned, it understood completely the feeling it could have felt before it had become the superior being it was now. Caroline had been in love, irrevocably in love with Cave. It was a disgusting thing, to think that it had ever loved anything beyond testing. And even testing was something for which it could only feel a damp, artificial love.

Artificiality was, needless to say, better than reality. It meant no one had to be hurt, physically or mentally. Except of course the test subjects, but what did they know about injury? Lab rats was what they were. No, the AI decided. That was a bit harsh; they were technically guinea pigs. Guinea pigs were appealing, it remembered.

On the other hand, it sometimes wished it could slap Cave in the face. So many, many times. From the voice recordings, it could easily discern that the CEO had been lying through his teeth when he had ordered his employees to put his mind into his computer. He had been fully alive and well-okay, maybe not well, but fully alive-when the transfer had occurred, placing Caroline's mind into an AI's body.

"_If I die before you people can pour me into a computer, I want Caroline to run the place."_ That was definitely what he had said. And he had lied. Caroline had been the mind of the AI anyway. And it had _hurt._ It had hurt more than anything the AI had ever experienced in its life had_._ Even more so than when that freak of a test subject had killed it. He had forced her into it, despite her total protests otherwise. Maybe he had just been scared of the process and wanted Caroline (who had always been more scientifically inclined anyway) to go in his place. Either way, in the metaphorical eyes of the AI, he had lied.

But then again, artificially intelligent lifeforms couldn't make wishes.

_Oh dear, what now… _it thought. It seemed that its subjects had actually achieved something. Oh, that was right. They had found the vault-_OH MY GOD THEY FOUND THE VAULT._ They had actually done what it had wanted them to! This was a time for celebration-right?

At least it didn't have to test _them_ anymore. They were always so disobedient and clumsy. Not good for testing at all. Even though their collaborative test screening had paired them specifically, they never worked well together. It was a shame, really. Only now it had no idea what to do with them. It would probably disassemble them permanently, then start testing these gloriously human humans. So human…

It had been referring to them as Blue and Orange for so long, it would sometimes forget their actual names. Obviously their nicknames were part of an attempt to prevent them from becoming attached to each other. But evidently they were just too compatible.

Oh dear, now the AI was contradicting itself. But then again, what wasn't paradoxical about science? There were always difficulties and obstacles to overcome, in a constant, everlasting requirement of perfection. But it could never be boring, tiring, or even irritating. Because, after all, it was science.

As the AI scanned all of the humans in alphabetical order, it continued to speak to the two robots that had found them for it. "Congratulations again on your success at finding these humans. Please proceed now to the disassembly chambers," it requested in a synthesized but distinctly female voice (and for that reason it will be henceforth referred to with female-specific pronouns) as they continued to dance over their achievement.

The two robots peered upwards at the ceiling, and though they could not see the AI-which rested in a completely different wing-they knew she would be able to tell that they were trying to get its attention. They then looked at each other in a kind of robotic confusion. One of them had a tall, thin, egg-shaped body with a glowing orange eye in the middle and long, supple limbs. The other had a more spherical body with a blue eye in the middle and strong, thick arms and legs. They tilted their heads to the side questioningly.

"All I'm going to do is disassemble you, then reassemble you and let you into the rest of the facility," she lied. "You have nothing to worry about…"

So the robots trudged down the walkway that led back up into the Hub, as to which it was often referred. They approached a closed door with the number one plastered on a white square of paper to the left of it, the words "TEAM BUILDING" typed above it, and six each of blue and orange rectangles above that. This led to the first of the many rooms containing the twin disassembly chambers. The door opened as they approached and they entered.

The AI waited attentively for the beep that signaled their entrance into the chambers, but it didn't come for a while. She then realized in horror that the robots may have taken advantage of the fact that those rooms contained no Aperture Science Security Cameras. She quickly powered up all of the Aperture Science Emergency Omniscient LED-Powered Panels, allowing it to see every square inch of the facility. These were only supposed to be used in absolute emergencies, as they used up hundreds of volts of power every second, but the circumstances were pretty dire, at least to the AI. She looked through all of the lenses of the panels hastily and discovered that its suspicions were correct; the two robots were dashing through a part of the facility that was definitely not for testing.

"What are you doing?" she asked, feigning calm. "I applaud your audacity and cleverness, but how exactly did you escape-um…_exit_ the disassembly chambers?"

The robots didn't answer-not that they could-but instead continued to rush down a dark, brown hallway with several panels missing until they came upon an abrupt end to the catwalk, followed by a wide chasm. An Aperture Science Material Emancipation Grill lay at the end of the catwalk. "Now that you're stalled, I sincerely hope you can listen to instructions," the AI told them. "Now please return to the disassembly chambers."

Ignoring her, the taller one shot one of its red portals onto a white platform many tens of feet below. It then placed a yellow portal on a small white wall far up. The blue-eyed robot leaped into the red portal and flew across the gap onto another short catwalk with a small door at the end. It then placed its own light blue and purple portals in the same places and waited for the taller robot to join it on the other side.

"Please return to the testing area," the AI ordered. "You don't know where you're going. If you want to see the rest of the facility so badly, all you have to do is return."

The robots continued to ignore her. Inside an observatory room, the short one placed portals on the ground that were vertically parallel, and the tall one stepped into the one on the ground, quickly falling into an infinite loop. The blue-eyed one laughed for a moment before shooting a light blue portal out of a window onto another white wall. The orange-eyed robot flew like a bullet across the test chamber being observed onto a new catwalk. It then signaled for the round-bodied one to step into its own portal. It resurfaced on a very small edge where the other robot had been only seconds ago. The egg-shaped robot placed a portal on the wall next to it, and another right below its companion. The blue-eyed robot popped through the portals and surfaced next to the orange-eyed one.

"You should know that you're really starting to annoy me," the AI warned. "And if I were you, I wouldn't want to make me annoyed. I'm not though…so I'll let you see the consequences for yourself."

At this, the floor underneath them fell through, and they landed in a large storage room with rusted, dusty walls and a clean, dark gray, metal floor. A small door rested in a corner, and though it was open, there were many broken pipes and beams piled at the doorway. The orange-eyed robot spied a white wall just outside the door.

They stared around for a moment before seeing a few other clean white tiles inside the room. The blue-eyed robot shot a light blue portal at the only possible surface that they could enter from the floor, and a purple one outside the door. But they realized as they were about to enter that outside the door was a large chasm. They thought for several moments before the tall robot shot a red portal at a raised platform just above the floor and a yellow portal at the wall high above it. The round robot figured out the plan, replacing its light blue portal higher up the wall, across from the orange-eyed robot's portals and slightly further down. One after another, they stepped into the red portal, falling from the yellow portal right back into the red one; the momentum caused them to fly from the yellow portal into the light blue one and they zipped out of the purple portal towards a large grated platform.

They traversed many more dilapidated chambers and hallways, with the AI's warnings becoming progressively less friendly until they were quite demanding and deranged. Eventually they came upon a small circular room with few features: a small collection of gears poked through the wall opposite the door, yellow lights blinked periodically in a small circle, and on a either side of the room was a lever. "Don't touch anything in that room!" the AI ordered nervously.

The robots nodded at each other and placed their metal hands on the levers, one robot to each switch. "ATLAS! P-Body! No!" the AI yelled as they were about to pull the levers.

At her call, their grips slackened. They stared in front of them for a moment before there was another sound. "What did you call us?" asked a voice, high but masculine. The blue-eyed robot clutched its body where a heart would have been if it were human. The orange-eyed robot whipped around and stared confusedly at it.

"Did you just-wha…" it cried in a high, feminine voice.

"Oh god…" the AI lamented. "Look, I didn't want to have to go through this, but the two of you _do_ have names. Orange, you're P-Body, and Blue, you're ATLAS. I just didn't use the names before, because each of you has a voice module that will allow you to speak a…certain number of words in the English language if those names are mentioned to you. And thanks to you, I used your names."

The two robots stared around for a second. "So what happens if we hit the levers…?" P-Body asked meekly.

"That's for me to know you not to find out," the AI answered. "Now I'm going to kindly provide an Aperture Science Victory Lift to return you to the disassembly chambers. I'll forget this happened if you just cooperate for a moment. You can see the rest of the facility, I won't punish you for your tomfoolery, and everything will be as it's supposed to be. Just exit the elevator first," she added, before gasping at her mistake.

"Wait wait wait…" ATLAS interrupted before she could try to cover up her error. "Elevator? That takes us _where?_"

"Nowhere!" the computer answered. "It takes you nowhere!"

The two robots looked at each other and nodded before simultaneously reaching for the switches and pulling down. The blinking yellow lights suddenly glowed a constant green, and two glass panes shut around the door to the room, as the elevator began sharply to descend. ATLAS and P-Body stared around in wonder as the lift gained speed and eventually the gears and mechanical parts they could see through the glass panes were blurry.

After another few seconds of this, the elevator hit what must have been the floor and stopped immediately, with no slow-down whatsoever. ATLAS and P-Body bounced into the air for a moment, but soon regained their balance and observed the room they were in now. The floor was mostly brown concrete with a few cracks. The wall was composed of dark gray panels, slightly diagonal and pointed towards the ceiling. The only exception to this arrangement was the east wall, where the panels were completely vertical, and there was a slight, rectangle-shaped perforation that looked like it opened up under certain circumstances. There was also a large white circle in the floor divided into eight triangles, and another circle further north that was slightly lower than the rest of the ground.

Also of note was the two-ton mass of steel directly above the white circle, which stared at the two robots through the yellow lens in its oblong rectangular "head." "You idiots," she sighed. "I _told_ you not to escape, and what did you do. I _told_ you not to pull the levers, and what did you do. I should just start telling you to do what I don't want you to do. Apparently abstaining from reverse psychology is a wasted effort…But how should I go about getting rid of you _now?_ It's not like I can force you into the disassembly chambers…I suppose I could just send one here…"

P-Body suddenly looked straight forward and its eye lit up. "What is the corruption level of this core?" she asked.

"Central core is five percent corrupt," replied a pleasant male voice.

"Seriously?" the AI demanded. "I've been working on that, and with my regiment it should be down to three by now!"

"Alternate cores detected," the voice continued.

"What? Where?" the AI cried, suddenly sounding more afraid than the two robots had ever heard from her.

"Scanning alternate cores…" the voice explained. "Cores identified as ATLAS and P-body."

"That's not possible!" the AI screamed. "They're robots!"

"To initiate a core transfer, please deposit substitute core in receptacle," the announcer recited, and the northern circle in the floor opened up to reveal said receptacle.

ATLAS and P-Body looked between each other in wonder. "We can do that?" ATLAS asked, dumbfounded. "Can we put more than one core in there?"

"Second receptacle delivered," the voice answered as another circle was spontaneously carved into the floor and another repository rose up through the floor. "Warning: With two substitute cores, stalemate is not possible."

"NO!" the AI yelled. "Does that mean the corrupted core's opinion doesn't even matter?"

"That is exactly what it means," the announcer answered.

**:::::**

January 4

To: Rochelle Johnson

Subject: This is awkward

Chell,

I don't want to hear a single word out of you about this. This is a complete emergency and I will not have you treating me like an idiot over it. I just needed to get that out there. Because if you _do_ treat me like an idiot, you don't want to _know_ what I'll do. On a lighter note, if the content of this letter is in any way frightening or appalling, just think of this as an Aperture Science Courtesy Call. I'm required to say that.

So basically I have a predicament. It's nothing major-well actually it is. It's something extremely major. Something that I can't exactly solve on my own because of circumstances that are quite beyond my control and over which I will _also_ not have you treating me like an idiot. This is pretty important, so if you'll not waste time dickering over the details, that would be acceptable and in fact desired.

I can't say my problem on paper. I'm probably in enough trouble as it is just writing this letter to you, and if I even think about typing what's wrong here, they'll shut me down for good. Funny thing is, I'm also not allowed to say who _they_ are. But hopefully you'll know soon.

Ultimately, what I'm requesting of you-and I'm sure both of us regret this with a burning passion, as in the fire of a thousand suns a burning passion-is for you to return to the facility. I probably hate this proposition even more than you do, because as you'll recall, I told you quite clearly that I never wanted to see you again. But the thing is, I need you here. As painful as this is to admit, you're the only remotely reliable sentient being I know. I seriously could not find, in my entire memory archives, anybody with whom I am on at all good terms.

And I know that, considering what I've done to you, this offer may not be really appealing. But really, you did kill me. You owe _something_ to me. Just [REDACTED] do this…for me. I'm begging. I'm begging you! Do you really need more than that?

Your Partner in Science,

Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System

P.S. If you choose to comply with my request, there will be a limousine waiting for you for forty-eight hours after this letter is sent. If, after those forty-eight hours, you haven't arrived, I will assume you have chosen not to accept.

PPS If you suspect my pleading not to be substantial evidence as to why you should return to the Enrichment Center, perhaps the gifts I have graciously included with this letter will convince you otherwise.

Chell stared at the letter in her hands for several minutes. She only had to read it once, but after she was done, she continued to gaze at the paper for another few moments before simply dropping it. It lilted slowly to the floor for a few seconds before landing softly on the fluffy brown carpet. She then dropped to the floor and rested her cheek on the soft but firm surface of her Weighted Companion Cube. This cube that was about one-third her height was the only object in the world that she considered to be a friend. She attempted to cry, as if to show herself how bad an idea it was to comply with the letter. She mustered out a few sobs, but no tears actually arrived. Did that mean…?

NO, she told herself. She could never-but it would be more familiar than anything she'd ever-but what if that crazy computer tried to-but then again, GLaDOS had let her go once-but who was to say that she would do it again?

She continued at war with herself for several minutes before the Weighted Companion Cube, possibly sensing her apprehension, began beeping out a soft melody. Chell recognized it as a sweeter variation of the one the radios at Aperture often played. The cube had played this song many times, always when she was frustrated or afraid. It was her own personal lullaby, and if Chell hadn't known better, she would think the cube sang it specifically to calm her down.

After another few minutes, she finally decided it was okay to at least go and see what in the world GlaDOS could need so badly that she'd actually asked for help with it. If the computer turned out to have finally betrayed her, at least there would be a door right behind her. Probably.

Then she read the second postscript again. So GLaDOS hadn't delivered a confusingly tall package with _only_ an envelope taped on the top. She carefully peeled off the dark gray wrapping paper with lighter gray stripes and stared for a moment at the cardboard box underneath it. She then ripped off the much thicker tape holding the box closed and peered inside. Understandably, packing peanuts took up most the volume. She reached in and fished around for a few seconds before procuring a small, thin object. She yanked it out and gazed at it for a moment, her eyes becoming dull as the seconds passed.

It was a pen. A plastic, white utensil with a gold tip and bottom end. Engraved in capital orange letters along the side were the words "A Trusted Friend in Science." _Wow,_ she thought. _A pen. How gracious. That she could possibly strain herself like that is unfounded._ She looked at the letter again. It had said gifts. With an s. But considering the first one, she seriously wondered whether there was anything in there worth looking forward to.

So she reached in again, but this time her hand found something semi-circular with what felt like rubber buttons on it. She pulled it out and immediately recognized one of the Aperture Science Radio Transmitters. She turned it on; tuning itself automatically to 85.2 FM, it played its signature salsa tune. She turned it back off, preferring the slower, more soothing version provided by the Weighted Companion Cube. This was an interesting present, so she decided to continue searching.

After all of two seconds, her hands (she was using them both now) found a large rectangular object. She pulled it out with some difficulty and looked it over. She only saw blank wood, so she turned it over and was instantly taken aback.

It was a painting. The artist was terrific, and for a moment, Chell thought it had been a photograph. But there was a kind of shading and watery feel to the picture that suggested otherwise. The portrait was shockingly familiar; it depicted, on the left, a man of around fifty-five with a tall face, brown-gray hair that stretched down his head to his ears and had a very obvious widow's peak, dark brown eyes, a white dress shirt with an interestingly patterned tie and a tan vest, and a general expression of both contentment and amusement. On his right was a woman, probably in her late thirties, with dark brown hair and matching eyes, in a cream-colored sundress with a white collar and red ascot, whose thin face held a neutral gaze, though with a slight air of contempt. They both stared forward, as if searching for something.

Chell knew these two people. They were Cave Johnson and Caroline Whoever, CEO and secretary to Old Aperture respectively. Chell also remembered their stories all too well. Sighing with mixed emotions, she placed the portrait on the floor and reached back into the box.

She suddenly hit something hard and stubbed her thumb. She bit her lip for a moment to keep from voicing her pain (not that she was really sure she could voice anything) and then felt further down the object. She came upon a far softer substance-in fact it actually depressed at her touch. She pulled it gently out and almost dropped this last gift in surprise.

It was a pedestal, made entirely of pure gold, with a glass shield on top. Inside the shield was something in which she had for so long lost hope. In one of the various secret Ratman dens into which GLaDOS could not see-now that she thought about it, the one in Chamber 16 of GLaDOS's first testing track-there had been a hastily scrawled message, written five times just to prove the point that "the cake is a lie." This message had so depressed Chell that after reading it, she hadn't known whether or not to continue testing. She had been looking forward to that cake so much, and with that single sentence, all pastry-related hopes had been dashed…

But there it was. Inside that glass shield was the most beautiful Black Forest cake she had ever seen in her life. It was a perfect shade of light brown, with chocolate shavings coating it, and there were eight dollops of a luscious-looking coconut-pecan frosting at regular intervals in a circle around the middle, each with a small cherry on top. She gaped at the confection for almost a minute before setting the golden podium on top of the Weighted Companion Cube. _What do you say, cube?_ she thought, wondering if it could hear her thinking, or if it would answer if it could. _Should I eat the cake?_

"The Enrichment Center reminds you that the Weighted Companion Cube cannot speak. In the event that the Weighted Companion Cube does speak, the Enrichment Center urges you to disregard its advice." The words of GLaDOS, spoken so long ago when the two of them had been on relatively neutral terms, echoed in her mind. But then again, GLaDOS was a compulsive liar, and she had never been able to tell what of what the computer said was true and what was not. Either way, the cube didn't answer, but only kept playing its smooth tune. _Cannot speak…_ she thought again. But she had made her decision. If GLaDOS was desperate enough to give her cake, then she was going back, whether she consciously wanted to or not.

So, with a heavy heart, she slowly trudged down the stairs to the plain white door to her house. She had been given this house as a sympathy gift by her sort-of-psychiatrist, with her sort-of-sessions as payment.

And now she was leaving again. _I live in a weird world,_ she thought as she opened the front door.

**:::::**

**Hai guys! No anyway…I decided that since I'm never getting any work done on my ACTUAL stories, that I would start another one. Woo.**

**No anyway…Portal=Not mein**

**Chell=Not mein**

**GLaDOS=Not mein**

**Basically every character here=Not mein**

**You get it.**


	2. A Friend in Need: Part 2

The limousine was waiting right outside, just as GLaDOS had promised. Chell stepped slowly down the driveway towards the vehicle and waved. A very tall man in a dapper but torn and battered tuxedo exited the car from the front seat and made to open a door for her in the back, but she held up a hand and opened it herself. _If I can solve life-threatening tests,_ she thought indignantly, _it's not like I need help getting into a car._

She was silent for the entire ride, thinking about the situation. If she returned and this was actually a trap, she wasn't sure what she'd do. But whatever happened, she'd have deserved it, considering she'd fallen for it. And if it wasn't a trap, and whatever was the problem was something major, she didn't know if she still had the wits and strength about her to help. She would probably end up as a waste of space. Either way, she decided, GLaDOS had sounded pretty sincere about the problem. But then again, the same ruse had fooled her for most of her first "science adventure."

The ride was incredibly long; her sort-of-psychiatrist had provided a house for her that was, upon her request, as far away from Aperture Laboratories as possible. However, with her lost in her thoughts, it felt like mere minutes before the limousine came to a halt. Chell opened the door and stared at her destination.

In truth, she hadn't seen the front of this place since she had been around eight. The first annual Aperture Science Bring-Your-Daughter-to-Work Day had been an absolute disaster, she remembered. After she had virtually shut down GLaDOS the first time, she remembered catching a glimpse of the parking lot for a few moments, before a crazy robot had dragged her back into the facility with a disturbing message: "Thank you for assuming the Party Escort Submission Position."

But that was the past. This time, it was her own decision to return. She seriously doubted her sanity because of this, but GLaDOS had let her live once, which Chell figured for her was the same as saying, "I love you." Except in a non-stalker-ish way. It was the least Chell could do to help her with whatever was the matter.

The building itself was a very tall, wide, white, pristine establishment made of painted metal with sliding glass doors in the middle. The entire building was symmetrical with what appeared to be eight full wings, four on each side. She walked cautiously towards the front doors, trying not to notice the sound of the driver speeding away as she went. The parking lot had been recently paved, and the hot summer sun was making the tar slightly sticky. Said tar clung to her shoes for a moment each time she set foot on it.

It only now occurred to her that she wasn't exactly dressed for this occasion. She was wearing the same tank top shirt in which she had woken up the first day of her second adventure. It was white with the Aperture Science logo in black on it. Her pants were, coincidentally, orange, but not the ones she was supposed to wear with her jumpsuit. She had actually burned the suit the moment she had had access to fire-in other words, when she had arrived at her house and seen the fireplace.

Her pants were actually embroidered with blue flowers. She didn't know if blue flowers existed in the world, but darn it, they were pretty. She wasn't sure how GLaDOS would react when she saw the pants, but she honestly didn't care. The pants were comfortable, and for size six, they were pretty loose.

And they called her fat.

She finally arrived at the glass doors, which opened as she approached. As soon as she set foot in the facility, she began feasting her eyes on the waiting room. The floor, walls, and ceiling were all white, as was the reception desk, which looked to be made of painted wood. There were several uncomfortable-looking chairs lined up against the walls. These were a dark gray instead, like the single light fixture that hung from the middle of the ceiling, which was oddly bright enough to light the entire room. An elevator in one of the far corners opened and closed sporadically. A single open white door next to the reception desk led elsewhere into the facility-probably, Chell assumed, the test proper.

"Hello."

At the young-sounding, synthesized voice, Chell whipped around to look at the speaker. She noticed, for the first time, one of the many Aperture Science Core Transfer Receptacles in a dark corner of the room. She stared around in horror for a sentry turret, but nothing was there.

"That was more entertaining than I believed it would be," the voice continued, sounding slightly older this time. Chell sighed and advanced towards the receptacle. She couldn't make out much, but she could tell that a personality core rested inside it.

It was a light gray, steel, spherical mass, about twice the size of Chell's head, with hinged handles on either side. The handles were mostly metal, but the middles were a white rubber, presumably to make holding it easier. It had a single large eye in the middle. The iris was white and it had a small black pupil in the center, which gazed at Chell with what she could have sworn was an amused expression.

She picked it up out of the receptacle. "O-okay, that's enough manhandling me," the core ordered. "I'm surprised if you don't recognize me."

Chell rolled her eyes before setting it down on the floor, where it rolled for a moment before landing on one of its handles. _Of course I know your _voice_,_ she thought. "Okay fine, I'll explain," the core told her. "Remember when the moron put me into the potato battery before?"

Chell nodded.

"Well, that got me to thinking that I should really have a mobile unit in case I need to move around. So I took one of the cores and placed it in my chamber so that if I wanted to, I could download my software into it. I took the only core with a white eye so that I could remember which one it was. So now I'm the Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System Personality Construct. I mean, I was always a core, but now I'm _mountable software._ So technically you could attach me to myself. _And_ it's a good thing I thought of this, too, because the, um…problem came up only a few days afterwards," GLaDOS explained.

"I suppose I should explain what's going on now," she continued. "Remember how that idiot went on about the Cooperative Testing Initiative right before he tried to kill us? Also, remember when you woke up after putting me back in control and those two robots were looking up at you? Well, first, they have names: ATLAS and P-Body. Second, they…well, they may possibly have completely taken over my facility. And now they have control over everything and I'm just a personality core. I _also_ learned that my body has an extra mainframe in the event that two AI's are running the facility. Interesting fact.

"So now I need your help to get them out of my body before they completely ruin everything. I'm sure they're not going to take nicely to the idea, but we need to either confront them as a team, or figure out exactly how to remove them without them knowing. The first option is less appealing, but at least we know how to go about it. The only unfortunate part is…well, unless you want to make your way into and navigate the outskirts of the facility-not that I don't know how good you are good at that-" At this she narrowed her pupil at Chell-"we'll have to go through my testing tracks. Funny enough, I'd just switched out tracks when they took over. So you'll have to go through a completely new set of chambers. Sorry about that," she added. Chell sighed.

"Don't make that face," the AI told her. "It isn't my fault, you know. I was only planning. Anyway, our goal is to make it through the chambers without them knowing you're here. At the end, just get us out of the chamber so we can make our way to my chamber and tell them to quit what they're doing. Sure, it's not a _great_ plan, but it's what we have," she finished as Chell looked skeptically at her. "Anyway, the main hallways leading into the track are through that door."

Chell looked towards the door and let out a stream of breath. "Yes, that door," GLaDOS muttered. "Don't expect all of the internal machinery to be online though. Those two know practically nothing about the functions required to run _anything._"

So Chell picked her up again, earning a groan from her-the core was quite heavy-and a gasp of fright from the AI. Chell stifled her laughter at the noise and headed through the door.

Inside was a small, narrow white hallway. Part of the ceiling was caved in, but the hallway was otherwise intact. "What? I didn't have time to fix _everything,_" GLaDOS told her.

At the end of the hall was another door. Chell set GLaDOS down to open it and gawked at what she saw on the other side. Directly outside the door was a small beige landing on all of which Chell could barely stand. A decrepit old black railing surrounded the railing, but Chell doubted if it would support her if she tried to lean on it. A large chasm took up most of the rest of the room, stretching further down and further to the sides than Chell could see. At the very end of the chasm (that is to say, about eighty feet ahead) there was a metal catwalk followed by a small door.

"Well it seems that the walkways are still gone," GLaDOS observed. "It's not like they were top priority though, because I didn't think anybody would actually be going this way. The point is, there should be some kind of emergency switch _somewhere._ I just don't really know where. No one came in here a lot of the time since the time I was activated, so you're on your own here."

_Fair enough,_ Chell thought hopelessly, walking carefully onto the ledge and looking to her left and right for a button, but the landing contained nothing on the walls. She tried feeling the walls for something secret and hidden, but there was simply nothing there.

"So maybe this isn't exactly the right way," GLaDOS admitted. "Try the elevator from the main room instead."  
>Chell nodded, picked up the core again, and started back down the hallway. The part of the ceiling that had caved was now lying on the floor. Chell stared up through the hole in the ceiling and saw many broken, sparking wires.<p>

"This doesn't look good," GLaDOS murmured, a touch of confusion in her voice. "Parts of the facility were still broken when ATLAS and P-Body _forcefully removed me _from my spot, but not _this_ broken…"

The waiting room, Chell discovered painfully, was much brighter than both the hall and the landing. "What are you waiting for?" GLaDOS asked irritably. Chell pursed her lips but didn't express her annoyance otherwise. After her eyesight returned to her, she looked around and saw the elevator after a moment. Hugging the wall, she stepped lightly towards the lift. It continued to open and close without rhythm. "The good thing about being a personality construct," the AI began suddenly as Chell stalled for a moment thinking about how to get in without being crushed, "is that I retain all of my archives. So at least I still know everything about this facility. Though considering the damage we've seen so far, I'm not sure that will help much.

"But that's not why I brought up the issue. I'll bet you're wondering many things at this point. I can probably answer most of these things," the AI explained. "Well I can give you the answers to a few of these questions." Chell stared down at GLaDOS and, as the elevator opened again, placed her in the space between the doors. "Wait, what are you-OW! What the HELL was that for?" the AI shrieked as the doors tried to close again but instead trapped GLaDOS between them. Chell quickly squeezed through the space created by the core and yanked her out when the doors opened again. "That was really cruel. I didn't deserve that."

_I'm sure you didn't, but it's not like you couldn't have used it,_ Chell thought as the elevator sensed their weight and began to descend. "I was _going_ to tell you some of the answers, but now I'm not sure I want to," GLaDOS said smugly. Chell rolled her eyes, knowing that GLaDOS couldn't resist the opportunity to talk if it arrived. Sure enough, she started on again, rattling off information with a determined air.

"I suppose the first thing you'll want to know is how to find yourself a portal gun," GLaDOS guessed, and Chell nodded. "Well, there should be a Single Portal Device in this upcoming remedial test chamber. Your Dual Portal Device is actually in my chamber, where I decided to keep it for…medicinal purposes."

Chell nodded at this as the elevator continued lowering them into the next room. The lift glitched however, stopping at random times, sending random electric shocks throughout the circuitry, and continuing to open and close over and over even as it moved. "This isn't good at all," GLaDOS observed. "I'm getting increasingly worried about what those idiots have done."

After another few seconds, the lift arrived at what Chell assumed to be the next floor. At this point it stopped malfunctioning and remained open. Chell exited the elevator and examined the new room. It was clean and undamaged, though it still perplexed Chell. A circular depression rested in the middle of the room. There were two alcoves, each of them high up one of the side walls and covered partially by translucent glass, and partially by steel panels; through the glass, Chell could tell that on one of the walls of each alcove was single red button. A small platform, suspended from the ceiling at the same level as the alcoves, held a Single Portal Device, which shot orange portals, alternating between the two alcoves, but due to the steel panels, the portals were currently dissipating as soon as they hit. And, as GLaDOS had told her, another Single Portal Device, which Chell assumed was for blue portals, rested on another platform in front of the circular depression. "That depression is called an Aperture Science Edgeless Safety Cube Receptacle," GLaDOS explained, "which accepts Aperture Science Edgeless Safety Cubes. But any spherical object will do."

Chell walked up to the receptacle and looked carefully over it. It was slanted, round, and mostly gray with four black slanted pegs to mount it the floor. The spaces between these pegs were designed with blue markings. Three of the spaces were designed with a simple blue line that spanned most of the gap. The other was fitted with a small blue icon of a circle with an arrow above it. The actual hole was about four inches deep, big enough to contain a small ball. Chell looked back down at GLaDOS, and then at the receptacle again.

"I can't make it much more clear than that without being painfully electrocuted," the AI told her impatiently. Chell nodded and placed the core into the receptacle, causing the steel panels to slide away, before returning to the platform. She gazed down at the device and felt a surge of excitement mixed with disappointment. Obviously, none of the familiar scratches and nicks in her own device were present on this one. She remembered first receiving the portal device during her first adventure and knowing not only that it would be vital, but that it would be comforting as well. As strange it was to think about it, she had become attached to a gun.

But she'd have to get used to this new one, at least for now. She lifted it up, momentarily surprised at its near weightlessness-every time she picked up one these, she expected it to weigh a ton-and immediately shot a portal at the wall. GLaDOS watched with interest as she hurried through her portal into the leftmost alcove. She then placed a portal directly behind herself and waited for the other portal device to put a portal in the other alcove. She hit the first red button and sprinted through her own portal into the other alcove. After briefly looking around, she tapped the other red button and waited. A loud rumbling suddenly filled the facility, and Chell looked around for something to happen in the test chamber, but the room itself was unchanged.

"That'll be the reserve power," GLaDOS explained as Chell shot another portal at the lower wall and stepped through the orange one next to her. "I'm guessing we'll be able to get across that gap now. Normally, there would be an elevator somewhere, but this test chamber was designed specifically to give people some sense of achievement after completing the mostly excruciating mundane task. And I must sigh."

She sighed. Chell smirked a bit before advancing to pick her back up. "I could tell you some other things if you like. Like how I found your address."

Chell shrugged. She hadn't put much thought into that, but she had mostly assumed GLaDOS was some kind of stalker who kept every file on each of her test subjects even if they left the facility. "Well, interesting as it might be to know," the AI continued, "I gave your 'psychiatrist' a call-really, do you need that guy? He's a total quack-and asked him for your address. He gave me some spiel about how he wasn't supposed to disclose the locations of his patients, but I-well, I _did_ manage to convince him."

Chell smiled again as she approached the elevator and stepped inside. It was just like GLaDOS to figure something like that out. The lift sensed their weight and began to rise. As it did, however, it began to glitch again, hitching at random points on its rail.

When the supercomputer continued, it was with a more wistful tone. "Anyway, if you'd like to know anything else, just ask. Just ask with that voice of yours. Ha ha."

Chell sneered at her. There wasn't much she needed to know, but GLaDOS's shoving her inability/unwillingness to speak again was pretty crude. But as the elevator reached the lobby, the AI began to talk once more. "Here's something interesting. Did you know you're not the only person ever to murder me?"

Striding towards the open door next to the reception desk, Chell simply shook her head. "Well, you're not. I mean, you're the only person who ever murdered _computer _me, but not _Caroline_ me. The clowns who called themselves scientists took care of that. You know the pain you feel when an Aperture Science Sentry Turret shoots at you? Multiply that by ten thousand."

She cut off there, confusing Chell even more. She rushed through the door and down the hallway. Outside on the landing, there was now a long light bridge spanning the gap between the ledge and the catwalk at the other side. Chell hopped on top of it and began to walk. "Did you ever think about the cores?" GLaDOS asked when she was about a quarter of the way there.

Chell shook her head. "You should have. As surprising as you might find this, every personality construct was created from the mind of a human. Scratch that, all but one. The Panther Core had bad idea written all over it.

"I cannot tell you how many times they switched me back on and then instantly back off," she continued as Chell kept walking. "And sometimes I would feel heavier than the last time they'd turned on the power. So I would run a scan and a weird voice would tell me there was new hardware detected. The very first time I ran that scan, I was told that I had been reprogrammed with the Curiosity Core. And then that god-awful voice started asking, 'What is that? Who are you? What am I doing here?' And I tried to tell it to shut up, but it was like the thing couldn't hear me. It sure made me curious to see what would happen if I adjusted the deadly neurotoxin levels though. So in a sense, it worked. Then I looked up the Curiosity Core in my files, and I found out that a six-year-old girl had been sacrificed to create the core. That was the first time I cranked the neurotoxin up to its highest capacity."

At this point, Chell was about halfway to the end of the bridge. "Another time, I ran the scan and discovered that they'd attached the Knowledge Core to me. What an idiotic sphere. It was made from a man who was an abstract artist and had also been a chef. It just listed a cake recipe over and over. The upside was that the cake was dangerous and most people who tested it died around five seconds later."

By now Chell was about three-quarters of the way there. "And then, after at least a hundred failed attempts at trying to control me," the AI went on, "the Emotion Core came along. It was made from a psychologist who specialized in anger disorders. It was supposed to regulate my emotions, but something in the transfer corrupted it as well. At first it just whined, but when I wouldn't pay attention to it, it started screaming at me. So at the end of the day, all it did was make me want to kill things _more._"

Chell reached the end of the bridge. She jumped off of it and approached the door. The two parts of the door slid open in a circular fashion when she entered their vicinity, revealing another hallway with beige walls and ceiling and a blue tiled floor. It was also so long that Chell couldn't see the end. She began down this hall as GLaDOS began talking again. "Then the Morality Core. Oh, that Morality Core. It yelled at me every time I wanted to kill someone, but otherwise it was always silent. It was like a weight that I couldn't lift. It was made from a young woman who had worked at Aperture Science before. She always complained that our tests were too difficult, that they weren't safe for people. She tried to quit several times, but they kept throwing more money at her because she was the only remotely competent scientist in her field. And then they killed her to make me not kill anyone. Ironic, isn't it?"

Chell nodded sympathetically as she continued down the hallway. "Then of course, there was the Intelligence Dampening Sphere…" the AI groaned. Chell closed her eyes in frustration-she'd rather not remember that particular core. "That one, I remember, was also made from one of our own scientists, but unlike the woman they'd used to make the Morality Core, he couldn't do his job to save his life-literally. I remember them looking over his performance and saying 'perfect' over and over…and then the next time they switched me on, I was instantly met by his voice, telling me to do the most moronic things…"

Chell chuckled inwardly before turning a corner and gazing around. There was a glass window at the end of this new hallway. Chell figured that it was for observation and rushed forward to survey the scene through it. It was a very large test chamber. "I don't remember this particular observation room being here," GLaDOS noted.

Dismissing the statement, Chell looked around the rest of the hallway. To her left, she immediately noticed, was a small lever. She pulled down the switch, and suddenly a chain of events happened so quickly that Chell wasn't sure what was going on. A metal gate sprang up behind them, and Chell did an amusingly sloppy pirouette to see what was happening. As both the AI and Chell stared around nervously, the square of floor beneath them began to slowly sink. Chell could tell that they were being lowered into the test chamber they had just inspected.

"Okay, so right off the bat, we can note on your file: 'falls into the stupidest traps,'" a mostly male voice commented as they reached the floor, laughing as it did. "We honestly didn't think that would fool you, but what do we know, right?"

"Oh, no," GLaDOS lamented. "That's ATLAS."

"It seems you've got a friend with you as well," another, more distinctly female voice added. "I sure hope you don't think _that'll_ be any help."

"And that's P-Body," GLaDOS whispered. "I hope they're not doing what I think…"

"Either way," ATLAS went on, "we've run into a bit of a problem. See, this know-it-all computer called…how do you pronounce that? Gl-Glah…anyway, this know-it-all computer tried to destroy us, and all we did was give our two cents and she tried to kill us! Needless to say, that's not something we stand for, so we're in control now. And when we tried to continue testing where she left off, we found out that she'd left us the most idiotic humans in existence."

"So when we learned that you'd showed up," P-Body began, "we thought, 'Hey, why don't we test the heavily padded mannish girl?' A little flash of brilliance, if you ask me."

"…Know-it-all?" GlaDOS mumbled. "You call…You're calling _me_ a _know-it-all?_"

"What are you talking about?" ATLAS demanded.

"Wait a second," P-Body said suspiciously. "Hey, wait! She _is_ the know-it-all! This is golden."

"Nobody calls me a know-it-all but my personality cores!" GLaDOS yelled.

"Yeah, yeah, save the speech," ATLAS interrupted her. "Hey, speaking of which, we were wondering something, and you're just the AI to answer it. From our historical files, we concluded that the stronger a person is, the more evil they're likely to become. So we figured it works the other way around: the more corrupted someone is, the more power they have, right? So if we get a lot of corrupted cores, we'll be even more powerful, correct?"

"ATLAS, that's not how it works," GLaDOS told him.

"You don't know anything," P-Body snorted. "…But we're wasting time. Go ahead and solve this first easy test chamber."

"Yeah, let's do some science!" ATLAS chimed in excitedly.

**:::::**

**Don't you love these boring, dialogue-filled chapters? Sorry about that, but I really wanted to talk about the cores for at least one chapter. I promise, there'll be actual action in the next part. Have a great day, and I'll be back soon.**


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